


It's always a near miss.

by turtling



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Doomed Timelines, Gen, Sadstuck, Uhm, blood and wounds and stuff... amongst other things, first fic so i have no idea what im doing, idk like, not particularly shippy, ok maybe a little more than a small amount of violence and swearing, one might argue it was sadstuck idk, small amount of violence and swearing idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-20
Updated: 2016-03-20
Packaged: 2018-05-28 00:32:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6306673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turtling/pseuds/turtling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The drones come to pay Dirk a visit more and more now he's thirteen. But it's all just training. The Condesce wants to make him strong. She doesn't want to kill him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's always a near miss.

**Author's Note:**

> ????  
>  this is my first fanfic and also kind of my first extended fictional piece of writing so its rather tortured and trite but it just was something i wanted to write for ages and i just want to get it done and out there onto the internet. constructive criticism welcome/desired.

It’s never been this close before. In fact, this time, it was almost a direct hit. You labour to blame yourself. Put virtually all your sapping strength into calculating and recalculating what you did wrong, how slow and clumsy your recovery from the last blow you were and how it threw off your next attack. You were knocked off balance, grabbed by a hand made of some alloy composed of metals not naturally found on earth. You had run chemical analyses on chunks from limbs and helmets you’d cleaved off imperial drones in past battles before. The stuff is nigh on unbreakable. Fortunately for you, your unbreakable katana is more unbreakable still. Its eponymous unbreakability is its most prominent feature, apart from it also being sharp, and a sword. All of these factors are excellent assets in a sword fight, you think. But this is not a sword fight. The drones don’t wield swords, making them considerably less cool by your standards. The drones do, however, fire explosives out of their arms, making them considerably more deadly, by everyone’s standards. You cannot do this, since you do not have rocket launchers in your wrists. This is because for the time being at least, you are human. 

Blaming yourself is too hard and too distracting; it’s using up all your focus that you should be using on absconding from the roof to nurse your wounds. The hand comes out of your peripheral vision, which is currently hazy and dancing with what looks like television static, pinstripes, and strips like torn wallpaper. It comes from the corner of your vision which is bright, unprotected by your sunglasses, and the brightness hurts to look at.

You are punched square in the sternum. The cuboid fist is the size of your torso. You hit the wall and your momentum momentarily seems more powerful than gravity as it pins you two metres above the floor below for an almost comical length of time before you drop to your feet. The concrete sends shockwaves up the bones in your legs. You picture them, x ray style, splintering like cheap matchsticks. 

Every single time these machines best you in a fight, once you’re down their malice seems to break down too. They don’t want to kill you. In fact, they are programmed not to. You know for a fact that every one of them is currently monitoring your heart beat, checking for health status reports, ensuring that you are rattled but not killed. The fact that they are still attacking is comforting.

At least one of your ribs is broken. You know this for sure. Normally you get a kick out of knowing stuff. This knowledge, for some reason, does not bring you your usual satisfaction. 

They are scanning you and they detect your broken ribs. You detect them too, through a considerably more rudimentary method. You are in a lot of pain.

Nothing a bit of rest won’t fix, but shit’s humiliating. The drones whirr and slow. It’s harder for them to pretend to accidentally miss when you’re just sat on the floor. You can almost see embarrassment in their uniform metallic masks. You wince in anticipation for the final deliberate near miss; the last shot before they leave you in the unspoken understanding that they never meant to kill you at all, just as much a truce as a threat. A reminder of their strength, of your thirteen year old body’s weakness. Of Her power. Of his death.

They always shoot just above your right shoulder for some reason. Perhaps because your sword arm is your left? It’s always around three and three quarter metres away from your body, close enough to send debris flying your way, but never you hit you. They never hit you. It’s always a near miss. 

 

\---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

GT: hey bro! i feel like its been ages since i managed to so much as catch a glimpse of your chumhundle lighting up my screen!

GT: I have seen neither hide nor hare of you.

GT: ?

GT: Good lord, what is with it with you this past week! You continue to be the most illusive bastard on earth. Stop screwing me around!

GT: I can see you are online! it says so right there!

GT: Is everything ok bro?

GT: Dirk?

GT: Buddy?

TT: Dude. Give a guy some space to breath.

GT: Oh thank goodness! I thought something bad had happened.

GT: You really had me worried sick! I had convinced myself that one of the Batterwitches drones had gotten you once and for all! 

TT: That’s not far from the truth.

TT: But no, I am under the impression that the drones have been programmed to avoid inflicting any serious life-threatening damage on me and Roxy. 

TT: They would have got me a long time ago otherwise. 

TT: Even though I may have been a more skilled and ruthless swordsman before I was 9 than most people get to be in their cushy pre apocalyptic lives, any 4 year old verses 100 gigantic red robots who both shoot explosive missiles and have orders to destroy said 4 year old?

TT: I’m not a betting man, but if I was, I wouldn’t bet on the kid.

TT: I have told you all this before.

GT: Odds bodkins, Dirk, I hear nary a word from you for days and all of a sudden you materialise, soliloquising about robots! 

GT: Whats been going on with you? Where in the name of SAINT FUCKING FRANCIS have you been?

TT: Sorry, bro. 

TT: And I’d really like to put aside all ironic charades for a moment to say, I really and sincerely am sorry.

GT: This does sound very sincere for you. 

GT: Are you fucking with me?

TT: No.

TT: You are my best friend, and I appreciate your concern.

GT: Uh, wow. 

GT: Youre welcome, and I forgive you then! 

GT: Not that I was ever really angry with you! I am just happy to know youre alive.

GT: Now hang on a moment there... what did you say about that not being far from the truth?

GT: About the drones I mean.

TT: Well fuck, you are sharp today.

TT: Thought that one might slip by you.

GT: Not a chance! 

GT: What happened?

TT: Drones came round to my place a few days ago. One in particular was being unusually impetuous.

TT: I suspect she was trying out a new model or software or some shit. That or it was just a standard error, which isn't totally infeasible. 

TT: But the point is, the thing was unpredictable.

TT: I sustained some minor flesh wounds. This is why I have not been in touch.

TT: I spent the better part of the last week patching myself up and getting some well earned rest.

GT: Why didnt you say so earlier!

GT: You shouldnt be so coy about your vulnerabilities.

GT: Instead you just dance a merry fucking jig around any topic which may cause me to feel concern for you.

GT: Let up on yourself, bro. You are only human!

TT: I guess.

GT: Where did those rusty curs get you this time?

TT: Lower torso. Missed my vital organs though, since it was a pretty shallow wound.

TT: Fucking idiot drone decided to be creative and spontaneous.

TT: Shot to my left side rather than my right, closer than usual too. Took me by surprise.

TT: I’m sure to have some seriously gnarly ab scars though.

GT: To be sure! Mr. Strider continues to out-rugged me.

TT: That really isn’t as hard as you think it is, dude.

GT: Fuck you!

TT: Anyway, enough bullshitting. 

TT: It was a little uncomfortable for a while, but it’s not bothering me any more. 

TT: I’ve been distracting myself with some projects.

TT: While I do value my combat skills highly, my most prized asset is my mind. 

TT: This, fortunately, was undamaged, and so I am continuing as usual, while the drone responsible has been presumably been utterly destroyed for getting so close to killing me. 

TT: It’s just not in her interests.

GT: Projects, you say? 

TT: Namely the auto-responder.

TT: That brief sit-out period was a blessing in disguise, really, since it allowed me to finally focus on the one project. 

TT: He’s ready to go now, in fact.

GT: Woah, seriously?

GT: Can I talk to him?

GT: How much is he actually like you?

GT: Or does he sort of have a more cleverbot-vibe?

GT: But oh boy, that is amazing!

GT: You really are a whizz kid.

TT: Yes, and yes. 

TT: I’ll allow him to meet you all imminently. 

TT: To answer your following questions.

TT: He’s pretty fucking like me.

TT: Indistinguishable from me, in fact.

GT: Banana oil! I bet I could tell the difference.

TT: Yeah, well, maybe.

TT: It’s possible I spoke too soon.

TT: And no, he does not have a fucking ‘Cleverbot-vibe’, because that would be terrible, and I would never make such an annoying piece of software.

TT: Although it is possible that he might play up clichéd usage of the unintuitive and repetitive speech patterns recognisable from artificial ‘intelligence’ projects of the times of yore, for ironic purposes, and to piss people off.

TT: The times of yore literally being your fucking times. 

TT: I think that’s what I would do if I was a perfectly sentient, highly intelligent and culturally astute guy in a pair of robo glasses.

TT: Honestly so far he’s been being a bit of a pain, but I think he really is grateful to exist.

TT: Thankful to me, even.

TT: Hey.

TT: Bro?

TT: Can I ask you to do something for me?

GT: Anything at all!

TT: Please don’t tell Roxy and Jane about this.

GT: What, about your spiffy new robo shades?

GT: As a sort of prank, you mean?

TT: No, you jackass.

TT: About my nearly getting killed?

GT: Oh!

TT: They wouldn’t understand.

TT: I mean, obviously Jane wouldn’t believe a word of it.

TT: And it’d make Roxy worry too much.

TT: So, do you promise?

GT: Anything for my best bro. I’ll keep it schtum!

TT: Thanks, Jake.

\------------------------------------------

 

Your friends call you Dirk Strider. For all intents and purposes, this is a pretty accurate description, you guess. 

It was three years since that conversation. It's stored in your memory, so you can recall it just as if it was yesterday. Despite this, in many ways, it feels like your earliest memory; the first real contact you ever had with another human being. Important. Three years since that drone took the initiative to explode a considerable portion of archaic architecture a mere foot away from your vulnerable corporeal body. You never told Roxy or Jane about the accident, and neither did Jake. It’s likely, in fact, that Jake has forgotten the whole incident. It wasn’t the first time you told him of your epic, life endangering battles, and it wouldn’t be the last. It will now have just blended into the collage of hazard and adventure he pictures as your life. 

You introduced your friends to the “auto-responder” not long after that conversation, and he has developed quite a unique and distinguishable identity and typing style to you since, you think. He talks to your friends, drives them crazy. Makes his presence, and more importantly, the differences between you and him, known.

It was three years since you told Jake what happened. You told him because he is your best friend. 

You also told him because he is your only friend with such trust, and such blind faith, that he would never even consider the possibility that you lied to him, and have been lying to him ever since. He’s your best friend, but it would never occur to him to be suspicious of the finer details of your story, even when you stumble and your story doesn’t quite add up. He’s not cynical, and he believes in you, and you can always argue him back round again with your inhuman intellect. 

It would never even occur to him how easy it would be for an artificial intelligence software with almost limitless efficiency and intellect to simply open another chat browser and talk in two conversations with the same friend simultaneously. How easy it is for you to change the colour of your text from orange to red and back again. 

 (His mind would never wander to the extent that he might consider the image of his best friend, staggering inside, a bloody flower of black-red blooming wetly and insidiously across the white of his t-shirt; like the spread of ink through water, toxic gas through air. Bleeding through bandages, replacing them, bleeding through again. Sat at his desk, in the year 2422, sickening similar to any other day, to work on his projects, this time in the impotent knowledge it would be his last, with an unforgiving, immovable deadline. Jake English might imagine, with a fond smile, his best friend curled over the device, cursing in frustration, struggling to debug his code - not struggling equally to keep his eyes open, to draw another breath into increasingly unyielding lungs. Not that you are the clone of a frightened and dying mind, preserved. Not the image of Dirk Strider activating his creation, then, with trembling and blood-drained hands, sliding the light frame off the bridge of his nose, folding the arms, gently placing you on the desk, and gingerly leaning back onto his unmade bed, mind and body utterly still for the first time in his life.) 

You lie to them all and they have no idea. It would break your heart, if you had one.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for actually reading till the end! Please let me know what you thought, if you feel like it of course. I'm having trouble reading this objectively. i think i want to rework this some time because theres stuff i want to make clearer but im not sure how just yet.
> 
> EDIT: k i changed some stuff which was kind of the plan but also prompted by feedback sooo basically the paragraph near the end in brackets is new and may be subject to further editing since it kind of turned into a wordy wafflefest which is what i was worrying about but oh well. sorry for subjecting you guys to what really should be a draft, im very unprofessional B-)


End file.
